Happy Valentine's Day!

About 10 minutes ago I was in both the northern and southern hemispheres posing for a very touristy picture. It was a short stretch break during our drive to our week long western excursion. It's something between a 5 to 7 hour drive, but people here are horrible at estimating time or distance so who knows. I snagged an awesome seat on the bus in the front row next to the driver. The scenery here is incredible. Uganda is called the pearl of africa because the soil is so fertile and the climate provides lots of sun, rain, and warmth. I am still trying to upload pictures so you can see, but haven't been able to find any strong enough internet to handle file transfers.

Apparently the city we'll be in when we are in rwanda has free wireless internet for everyone, so I'm hoping that means the internet situation will be better than I've seen. Also, I find it pretty entertaining the rwanda has figured out how to provide free wireless throughout a city cost-effectively before anywhere (that I know of) in the US.

Yesterday I did my first real homework assignment we've gotten, which was to walk around our village with a host parent or local leader, map it out with key points of interest, and then write about the things that stuck out to us. I got lucky because my host father is on the village council. Kisota Zone (my village) is mostly residential is almost entirely residential but it was still so interesting to notice the diversity of the people living there. Besides one small, wealthy neighborhood and the slums, Uganda does not really have geographical separation of socioeconomic classes. You get a large, well maintained house with walls around it right next to a small 2 or 3 room house with bars on the windows. I think that mostly it is good that there isn't such a SES separation or concern with how others perceive ones status here. However, I really dislike the giant walls with razor wire on top and iron gates built around many of houses. It really feels like the houses are separate from the community around them.
The really interesting thing to me is that many people have gardens by their homes or rented plots to grow food in large fields. Yet, none of these are sectioned off to stop others from stealing food. My host dad says that theft like that isn't really an issue at all. Yet I would assume that these houses turned fortresses are protected for a reason... I'll investigate and get back to you on the deal w that.

In other news, I am quickly getting over my fear of bugs. Liza and melissa: have no fear. Next year I can deal with any puny cockroaches (compared to here) that may appear in our apartment:-) however my standards of cleanliness have significantly decreased out of necessity, so you have that to look forward to as well...

Alright. That's all for now. Gonna return to my ipod and watching banana trees and cows with giant horns and go by...
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry